Disable Smilies in This Post. Show Signature: include your profile signature. Only registered users may have signatures.

*If HTML and/or UBB Code are enabled, this means you can use HTML and/or UBB Code in your message.

If you have previously registered, but forgotten your password, click here.

T O P I C R E V I E W

HiFi

[withdrawn]

HiFi

This is a model of a naval tactical missile, dating from between 1946 to 1953. [Note: updated info in reply following] The stand, which also has "confidential" engraved in it, has the Grumman logo and says:

U.S. NAVYBureau of AeronauticsXSSM-N-6 TACTICAL MISSILE

The model has two pairs of boosters that are removable. One on each side of the model.

Any idea how I can get an idea of the value of this? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Jerry Brouillette

Nice models! I've never seen either one. They could be worth quite a bit to the right collector. Gotta love that Buck Rogers style of the Tact missile!

HiFi

Apparently this is the Grumman Rigel, which was planned as a large submarine launched nuclear missile.

From Encyclopedia Astronautica:

American Navy pioneering cruise missile project. Development started in 1943. Program cancelled in 1953.

Rigel was begun by the US Navy in 1946. The aim was to produce a solid-rocket boosted, twin-ramjet powered, ship-launched supersonic cruise missile to attack shore targets at a range of 930 km (500 nm). Work began with simple single-ramjet test vehicles. Flights of twin-ramjet test vehicles began in May 1950. After repeated test launch failures, and success of the less ambitious Regulus subsonic cruise missile, Rigel was cancelled in August 1953.

From designation-systems.net:

The operational SSM-N-6 Rigel was designed with two wingtip-mounted Marquardt 71 cm (28 in) ramjets and four rocket boosters. The missile had a range of 930 km (500 nm) and was guided by a modified LORAN system. Two guidance submarines along the flight path would have been used as beacons which were interrogated by the missile to obtain location information. When the predetermined target location was reached, the Rigel would have entered either a preprogrammed or a ballistic flight path towards the point of impact. It was hoped to achieve an accuracy of 550m (600 yd) CEP with this system. The intended warhead for Rigel was a W-5 nuclear fission warhead, but it's possible that the final operational missile would have used a W-27 thermonuclear device.

I have also read that the missile was originally designated SSM-6, then changed to the later designation. So that would date this model to sometime between the mid 1946 to early 1953!

HiFi

[withdrawn]

HiFi

This second model, which is about 14 inches high and made of metal, is the Trailblazer 2 rocket designed for high-speed re-entry tests by NASA. Taking re-entry test payloads high into space, then ramming them back down into the atmosphere. This was a test method for re-entry materials such as used in the heat shields.

The first two stages of the rocket would take the upper stage package to an altitude of 300 km. Then the upper two stages would fire, driving the 18 kg payload into the atmosphere at 6.1 km/sec.

These launches were done from NASA Wallops Station, Virginia, beginning in late 1961.

NASA fired a four-stage solid-fuel Trailblazer rocket from Wallops Station, Virginia, in the first of a series of reentry tests. Two stages boosted the rocket to 167 miles; then the other two drove the nose cone down through the atmosphere at 14,000 miles per hour.

The engineer who owned this model was instrumental in Project Fire which tested materials for heat shields using this rocket.